Letters 3-19-10

Two comments on your March 5 editorial, "A lowercase “green” community": First, your recognition of the complexity of defining and understanding the concept of "affordable housing" is apt. ["There are state-designated affordable units for which the town gets credit, and there are those that simply serve that function as part of the unregulated real estate market."]Another aspect for consideration is the U.S. Census reporting of housing costs - for either homeowners or renters - as a percentage of their income. This is another reason that the U.S. Census that's about to occur, and its companion American Community Survey, are so important in collecting this vital information for accurate assessment of our community needs.

Second, perhaps the Green designation should recognize the contribution of historic preservation in seeking to preserve what exists rather than consuming further energy to replace it. And, on that note, the Cape Cod Commission, Preservation Massachusetts, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation (with funding provided by the Cape Cod Foundation through the Ruckert Family Trust Fund and the Massicot Family Trust Fund), are sponsoring the annual Cape-Wide Historic Preservation Workshop with the timely topic “Historic Buildings and Green Design” on Thursday, March 25, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Harwich Community Center, with registration via Sarah Korjeff at the Cape Cod Commission (skorjeff@capecodcommission.org).

Marilyn Fifield Barnstable There is no “Plan B”

Editor’s note: Bob Ciolek saw this week’s column by Michael Daley on our Web site earlier this week and sent this response.

I read the piece written by Michael Daley with a mixture of both agreement and sadness. Agreement because the author correctly points out a number of past situations where the people of the Town acted as one to resolve a Town-wide problem and with sadness as he was unable or unwilling to make the obvious connection that the current situation is one where such an effort is needed once again. He appears to also be making the argument for a case by case determination of Town-wide funding based upon some vague concept of “village rights” and his political judgment that the residents of the Town lack the desire to pass a debt exclusion measure.

Protecting our sole source aquifer where we obtain our drinking water, preventing unsanitary conditions and real threats to the public’s health, restoring our saltwater and freshwater resources and complying with federal and state laws are Town-wide goals with tangible Town-wide benefits. Indeed, it is a program which also recognizes that every resident contributes in varying degrees to the problems which need to be rectified. A program that provides benefits to everyone, where everyone is responsible for the problem is one that should be paid for by everyone.

As a society we may grumble about paying for public services, sometimes with good reason. But we all generally accept the idea that the costs of certain services should be equitably shared as we all benefit in varying ways. Whether it is police protection, education or public health we may complain but we also pay. And unrecognized by the writer is the fact that there are a host of other Town services we pay for collectively that most of us will never use or benefit. I pointed out at the Council hearing on our funding plan that I was paying my fair share for the new bulkhead being constructed at Barnstable Harbor but it was highly unlikely I will ever set foot on it let alone benefit from it. If you glance through the Town’s operating budget you will notice scores of programs and services we all pay for but will never use.

As noted, the writer also mentions that his village will not benefit and thus should not pay. Would that the various sewering projects be paid for by one or more of or seven villages! In fact, the current plan is to pay for them by streets and neighborhoods. The last time I looked Stewart’s Creek is not a village or even a postal drop. It is just a collection of mostly modest homes with a geographic connection to a body of water. Same for the residents around Lake Wequaquet or the folk who live along the Centerville River. Ditto for the people who happen to live near the well-heads pumping our drinking water. Forcing certain streets and neighborhoods to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a program of clear benefit to everyone is fiscally unsound and morally bereft.

Finally, the writer misread the cover letter sent to the Town Council with our plan. The “us” referred to in the letter is the 47,000 of “us” who live in the Town of Barnstable, not one or more of the three of “us” serving on the committee. Some part of the 47,000 of “us” will, indeed, need financial assistance to pay for this expensive program and the Town Administration and Council should consider a way to dedicate funding for that purpose. My personal view has been that the Council currently has the opportunity to adopt two local options excise taxes which together would annually raise about $1 million. It should do so and direct that the funds will only be spent for this purpose.

The writer said that we need a Plan B to go along with Plan A. I agree and I think we all know what Plan B would be. Simply stated, Plan B is to make a decision to do nothing and watch the continued deterioration of our water supply and natural resources, not to mention causing the likelihood of an enforcement action by the federal and state governments. The Town can always choose the “do nothing” option. Plan A, though, is to admit to ourselves that this is an essential service requiring a contribution from everyone and then get on with the job. I would like to believe that I live in a Town – and not a village – which would choose Plan A.

Robert J. Ciolek West Hyannisport

The writer is a member of the town’s Comprehensive Financial Advisory Committee subcommittee on clean water protection funding.

Phenomenal job performed by the CFAC

I hope and trust that homeowners all over Barnstable were tuned in last week when the CFAC, otherwise known as the Comprehensive Financial Advisory Committee, sat face to face with the town council, manager and other local officials to counsel them on just how ludicrous their proposed 100 percent betterments cast upon over 300 homeowners around Stewarts Creek would be. First let me echo thanks, praise and congratulations to all those dedicated members from the CFAC who volunteered their time, efforts and energy for something so important and worthwhile to our town! I will also commend Mr. Ciolek for his fabulous presentation and his candid and professional portrayal of both the ramifications of this plan and the options available, despite such options not being very helpful to local homeowners in this devastating financial climate. There is quite frankly no easy answer or payment alternative for most homeowners in these painful economic times!

Having said this, many things are quite troublesome and angering to me as a homeowner and taxpayer and I suspect others share some of this as well. How and why is it that our local town officials including this council and past councils wasted millions of our tax dollars and never once were voters and taxpayers allowed to even participate in any of this? My best guess is that well over $15 Million was paid out to various entities over the years without ever even bringing the issue before the voters and taxpayers for a vote - of any kind! Why?!

Last July I asked our Town Finance Director how much taxpayer money was paid to an engineering firm named Stearns & Wheler dating back to Jan. 1, 2006. He sent that amount to me in writing: an astonishing $ 2,688,343.09 or rounded off to about $ 2.7 million! I was even more angered when I asked the Town Purchasing Agent how many other bids there were for that work I was told, "None." I recently asked a friend how long town officials had been trying to push sewering through and he told me the mid-90s. If some $ 2.7 million was paid out in a three-year period then God only knows what the grand total of taxpayer money wasted was over the past dozen plus years or so, all without one voter ever approving a dime of it!

Look at the Town of Chatham. They recently asked their voters and taxpayers to vote on their proposal for sewers and while there is some controversy over their plan, at least their local government allowed them to vote on it before they began! Why is it that the Barnstable Town Council continues to make every decision for we the people. Our town officials have wasted millions on a golf course in Hyannis, a private airfield in Marstons Mills, a marina and a municipal water company and removed about a thousand acres of land off our tax rolls, all without ever allowing even one voter to cast a single vote on any one of these! Is this democracy or dictatorship?! The voters of our town deserve not only to be part of these decisions but more importantly to dictate to the council and manager where we want our money to go and for what!

An elected Mayor here is long overdue!

A certain few continue to say that there may be a lawsuit from a judge over the sewer issue. I find this almost comical since lawsuits need merit and standing to be brought forward with any chance of success. There are no grounds in this case for any kind of lawsuit since Title 5 septic systems are allowed under the statute as an acceptable means of wastewater treatment, otherwise referred to as part of the State Environmental Code 310 C.M.R. 15.301. Even the folks from Conservation Law Foundation have alluded to it that there are reservations for a factual or otherwise basis for any kind of lawsuit or there surely would have been one long ago, would there not have been? Our council has four attorneys on it that I know of. Do they not get this?

Until and unless a Federal or State EPA judge outlaws Title 5 septic systems, no one can be forced into a municipal sewering system, especially those on and within private roads and ways. This would be a lawyer's dream come true! The truth of the matter is that the lawsuit back in the ‘70s regarding the Judge in the Boston Harbor case inolved the City of Boston knowingly and voluntarily pumping raw sewerage into Boston Harbor. This was the sole reason for that lawsuit which had merit and standing and is far different than a certain few on some local town council merely wanting town sewer just because other town officials think this is needed. The bottom line is that if any judge mandates anything at this point, it might be an order for the Town Board of Health to begin a regimented program of monitoring failed septic systems within our town and forcing the repairs of those, something that to my knowledge does not exist now nor has it ever!

My last conclusion is that there have been at least two studies done on the nitrogen problem within Stewarts Creek and both concluded that the cause has not come from the septic systems there but more from the town's own wastewater plant on Bearses Way. The USGS (United States Geological Survey) and the Cape Cod Commission both came to the same determination that the groundwater from the plant is the biggest known cause of the problem so how and why does the local town council feel compelled to tax some in Stewarts Creek from their own homes due to the town's own fault and incompetence?

None of this makes sense to me and if this matter were to ever to land on a judge’s desk, I dare to think how much in damages the town (which happens to be us) might be held accountable to repay to the innocent homeowners from Stewarts Creek! I know a number of more than competent attorneys who could easily defend this one in front of any judge and millions more of our tax dollars would be wasted once again.

Again, thank you to all on the CFAC who helped shed the truth and sanity on this ill-thought plan. I see this as a plan of lunacy. The town council needs to get back to reality and the drawing board and stop wasting our tax dollars! Get real.

In my opinion, this was the most gross waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen and if this were the private sector, all would have seen the door hitting their backsides long ago! Maybe it is time for some more new councilors.

John Julius Hyannis

Can I please have my Congress back?

We have certainly all seen it before. As one door is closing, inevitably another one starts to open. This became evident recently with the announcement that the 10th Congressional District’s entrenched representative was retiring. As taxpayers, we can only hope that along with the door closing on this mediocre career, by extension it will bring an end to the tired and bloated old habits of our deficit-spending government. When the current Congressman arrived in Washington in 1997, the national debt stood at around $5 trillion. Today the debt is rapidly approaching $13 trillion.

It is time to open a new door in Washington.

We can only hope that when the door opens to a new Congress in 2011 behind it will stand elected representatives who are committed to governing according to the will of the people and to securing the financial future of every American. Representative Jeff Perry of Sandwich has spent every one of his four terms on Beacon Hill working to make our government more accountable and more efficient. He must now take his strong leadership skills and conservative values to Washington as our Representative in Congress in the 10th Congressional District so that he can secure America’s return to being the economic leader of the world.

Most Americans love their country and would be willing to make tough sacrifices if the result is a more secure future for our children. The Herculean challenge currently facing our elected officials is to convince us that they can be trusted to do what is in the best interest of the people. For far too long our government seems to have existed to satisfy its own appetite for power and control. What currently exists is what our Founding Fathers feared the most; a powerful and unwieldy central government that seeks to make itself even stronger despite the overwhelming objections of the people.

As we begin the second decade of the new millennium, perhaps the sleeping giant known as the American electorate has awoken from its slumber. Less than two months ago these informed voters tried to send the Washington elitists a message with the election of Scott Brown. Unfortunately, our Congress chose to ignore it. The elections in November will give everyone an opportunity to help usher in a new era of responsible government which can begin with the election of Jeff Perry as U. S. Congressman for 10th Congressional District.